A Review of Advanced Ball Mill Modelling

Abstract

In the early 1990s the discrete element method (DEM) was used for the first time to simulate media motion in tumbling mills. Although it has been over a quarter of a century since this tool was first used to predict media motion it has not yet reached maturity to be used in predicting product size distribution and throughput of tumbling mills. However, there has not been shortage of attempts to do so. The literature is relatively vast in the topic and researchers who embark in this area of research will find it difficult to understand the current status of development and also the similarities and fundamental differences that exist amongst the various approaches that have been proposed and pursued over the years. The paper reviews the literature on the application of models based on distributed collision energy information to predict size reduction in tumbling mills, in particular ball mills, analyzing critically various approaches proposed, their limitations and achievements, identifying areas that still require development until the technology becomes ready for being used for optimizing and designing ball mills. Finally, the advances recently accomplished on the approach proposed by the author and his co-workers are then reviewed in greater detail.

Revealing the effect of decreased energy intensity of grinding in a tumbling mill during self-excitation of auto-oscillations of the intrachamber fill

“…There have been many attempts to numerically solve the task on determining the impact action of fill in the chambers of the drum-type mills. A review of several numerical methods to model the impact action of fill is given in [12]. Much attention is paid to the application of DEM method.…”

Trends in Modeling, Design, and Optimization of Multiphase Systems in Minerals Processing

“…For new operational conditions or new equipment, new equations or parameters must be determined based on additional experimental data. Several papers have been published that review modeling in multiphase systems including the flotation process [21], either for classical mathematical models [22] or a soft computers approach [23], ball mill [24], and hydrocyclone [25]. Some of the papers are more specific, such as the review of the modeling of bubble-particle detachment [26] or entrainment [27] and water recovery [28] in flotation.…”

Simulation of the Attrition of Recycled Concrete Aggregates during Concrete Mixing

“…Important advances in the understanding of degradation and size reduction have been made possible with the wide application of the Discrete Element Method (DEM) [ 6 , 7 ]. The method allows describing the interactions amongst particles and between them and the machine [ 8 , 9 , 10 ], being amenable to be used in association with proper descriptions of breakage in predicting comminution and degradation during handling [ 6 , 11 ].…”